Regarding their new manner of game releases (Tales from Borderlands and Game of Thrones):

1) You have to signup on their website for yet-another-account-you-wont-care-about-or-use, only to be spammed later because of it. -2 Points.

2) You have to signin to that account in the game, which means you have to be online to play a purely solo adventure. -3 Points.

3) You have to redeem your code on telltale's website, not in the game itself. The game already asks for your user/pass, why the hell couldn't it also ask for your code to make things easier? -1 Point.

Clearly someone in their marketing department took control. As we all know marketing guys sacrifice all kinds of ease of use, streamlining, and doing-things-right, for "omg numbers and stats and up sell and cross sell and data mining and viral social networking!! customer satisfaction be damned!!".

I have not bothered to buy these games after finding out how they work/setup. I don't think I want the hassle... maybe eventually if I'm bored, I will buy them. But right now, I have no inclination to do so... even though I am a huge Borderlands fan.

Anyhow... I have lost some respect for Telltale Games as a result.

(Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and is in no way or shape representative of any other organization or insitution)

-Fm [1oM7]
"I'm not incorruptible, I am so corrupt nothing you can offer me is tempting." - Alfred Bester

Ugh that login. And it was giving me fits that it wouldn't take my password and when it failed it would go back to the game and would sit at a black screen and I would have to force quit it. DO NOT WANT.

Is this Account requirement the same across all versions, even iOS and Steam? Or only if you buy it directly from them? I have an old account before iOS/Steam on Mac existed, haven't used it in years.

Sneaky Snake, on 06 December 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

I'm thinking of picking up their Game of Thrones game. I've heard their Walking Dead series was really good. Anyone have any insights?

Telltale's games are good, but I'd wait til the whole season comes out and you can grab it for less than ten bucks during a steam sale. Sometimes it's a long wait between episodes Also, be aware that they are very much "interactive movies" in that there is little to no gameplay, and the choices for the most part don't "matter" that much--it's more about seeing how you'd react under the circumstances than how different choices play out differently. This bothers some people. Personally, my favorite has been The Wolf Among Us. Walking Dead Season 1 was awesome up until the ending, and Season 2 was strong overall (especially the ending, woah) but felt less "meatier" in terms of exploration/things to do than Season 2.

Most of their older comedic games are pretty good, too, especially Tales of Monkey Island. They are more your standard Lucas Arts-style puzzle adventures.

2) You have to signin to that account in the game, which means you have to be online to play a purely solo adventure. -3 Points.

What?!

Okay, that's stupid. I've got a second playthrough of the whole TWD series going long-term that I just play when I'm out and about. That would make that impossible unless I tethered to my iPad mini. Frak that noise.

Basically I'm online all the time at home. But still I don't like a game I can't play unless I'm online because I'm offline enough more and more these days so I think that it's not a good idea for me to buy online-only games. I was holding out on Tales from BL anyway to see what kind of game it was by watching in-game play videos on youtube. Not sure this is the game for me anyway but still, thanks for the heads up. I wanted to want this game too. You should have seen my happy little face when I saw the first promo for it.

Yeah Im not sure if its very action packed like the real borderlands games, but rather just a 'story to follow' kinda game. Be interesting to read more actual user reviews (not paid advertisement reviews like every game website has posted).

-Fm [1oM7]
"I'm not incorruptible, I am so corrupt nothing you can offer me is tempting." - Alfred Bester

So it seems Telltale is on the verge of bankruptcy, as you can see in this article. I was shocked that an apparently successful company, having released so many games in a few years, many being great IMHO, was probably bleeding money all over the place, grew too fast and was clearly mismanaged. That sucks.

I played the Jurassic Park and Back to the Future games, but it is just not for me. An interactive game like that, with next to no gameplay, where you have to click everywhere to progress minutely, is not something I enjoy. If it was actually good and complex gaming like the old school Lucasarts games, then it would have been much more satisfying.

I played half of one of the Sam & Max games recently, and it made me laugh a couple of times, but not nearly as often as it tried to. When I found myself groaning every time I had to backtrack, or someone started in on a long monologue, I decided I'd better stop.

The failure was partially my fault though- there was a time in my life when I enjoyed point-and-click adventures more than I do now. I adored LucasArts' original Sam & Max adventure, for instance. Getting stuck and working through it was part of the enjoyment. If I could get back to that level of patience I'd be a happier and better person all around.

The situation stinks though. I appreciated that Telltale had found a way to evolve point-and-click adventure games to keep them viable, even though they weren't my cup of tea. I think the last one I played was Bone, and that series got cancelled early- first off the Mac, then across the board. i have their old Wallace & Gromit series (Windows only) and I might try them at some point, just cause I love W&G so much.

Well, the games Matt and Thain cited aren't the best Telltale offered I think (except maybe Sam & Max, I didn't play them yet so I can't formulate an opinion). But I enjoyed The Walking Dead and Batman a lot. Also Game of Thrones, Minecraft Story Mode, Tales from the Borderland, The Wolf among Us are very good in my opinion. Granted, they are more interactive movies than traditional games per se, but there's nothing wrong with that. I've just started playing Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

I have recently started with Tales from the Borderlands, as I had bought this quite a while ago and Telltale's demise gave me an excuse to play it. I'm quite enjoying it. It's well written, funny, and has many classic Borderlands characters, including Handsome Jack, plus a bunch of great new ones. But it's really not much of a game.

Compared to a couple of the older TT games I played (Tales of Monkey Island, Sam & Max Season 1, Nelson Tethers – Puzzle Agent, and Back to the Future) it's really more of a somewhat interactive movie than an actual adventure game. Even BttF had far more challenging puzzles.

"We do what we must, because we can."
"Gaming on a Mac is like women on the internet." — "Highly common and totally awesome?"

Tales from the Borderlands is one of the best. Right up there with Wolf Among Us, and I'd never played a real Borderlands game before. I also quite enjoyed the second Batman season (and the first was decent too) but of all the interactive fiction games, it was a missed opportunity for some real gameplay with the too-simple Batman detective mode.

I never played the third Walking Dead because it supposedly wasn't so great, but I'm still sad Clementine's story won't get closure (or at least, not the intended closure--they've said they want to finish it in "some form.") I was also looking forward to the Stranger Things game, and Wolf S2.

I think what happened was the studio did was expand too fast too quickly, buying expensive licenses (Guardians of the Galaxy, Game of Thrones) and not doing anything exceptional with them. Their CEO was also ousted last year.

What's sad is that there isn't really anyone else making these kind of games. We have Dontnod with LiS, but they don't do other people's properties.

I wonder if they should have built more of their own properties along the way. Even if the sales were 1/4 of a game that had a tie-in to a licensed property, the profit might still be better. And no risk of losing the license so you could sell the game for longer.

Easier said than done, probably. But I have to imagine they could have made just as good game with their own characters, if not better.